Print firms could use design to promote their own business and make them distinctive from their competitors but would they spend money on design work rather than invest it in equipment? A new business program called Design Demand, which helps companies get full value from design more effectively.

Evolution Print is a company that wanted to create a new identity for itself and selected design agency The Designers Republic to create a new corporate identity. A new circular logo was selected because it represented Evolution Print’s recent journey. Their logo was said to be very recognizable with a strong identity that stood out against other firms in advertising space. The follow-through involved a communication strategy that utilized the strengths of the new brand identity.

For example, the firm sent posters out to clients using the new logo repeated five times like five gold rings symbolizing their commitment to “craft, obsession, understanding, partnership and environment” or the “COUPE” acronym. The firm also put their logo on its vans, t-shirts and new website. For them it was important to have a good visual identity that people could identify with and understand. The firm has enjoyed an increase in revenue since the re-brand.

Analysts predict that the Middle East print market, which was estimated at $5.3 billion in 2007, will see an average 7.7% annual growth rate until 2012. According to leading information provider for printing, paper, packaging, and publishing industries, Pira International, the market will peak at $7.6 billion. Upcoming events may be organizers of the 2009 Gulf Pack and Gulf Print exhibitions’ largest in their history due to a significant growth in the global and Middle Eastern printing and packaging industries. This impressive growth driving the industry is a result of an increase in advertising, publishing and consumer spending across the Middle East’s food and beverage markets.

Consumer spending is on the rise and having a direct effect on the packaging and printing industries. This is attracting the attention of several of the world’s top manufacturers and suppliers of packaging and printing technology and machinery. Key factors in industry development are regional printing market’s end-users and they are primarily publishing, commercial printing, and packaging printing. Packaging printing accounted for the biggest percentage of the business followed by print advertising, commercial printing, and newspapers sectors. As a result, the Middle East is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for packaging and printing.

We all know that different stocks of paper produce different tones from the same colour of ink.
For example black ink can appear to contain colour when printed on colour paper.

The most important thing to remember is that the grade, grain and colour of paper used affects the colour of the ink.
When analyzing your printed product be aware that the light source under which you are looking can also affect the colour tone.
In order to avoid mistakes, Talk to your printer ask your printer for a proof before signing off your print or ask to see paper samples and discuss final output. Your printer will be able to advise you on the correct paper type for your product. Above all, always ask them to make you a hard copy for proofing/sign off as a PDF will not show you the results of how your colour will print.

E Ink’s technology provides a convincing argument for the validity of electronic paper (or e-paper). The technology has been described as relatively simple. Each display consists of millions of tiny microcapsules that each contain positively charged white capsules and negatively charged black capsules. When a negative electric filed is applied, the white capsules move to the top where they can be seen by the viewer.

To form an E Ink electronic display, the ink is printed onto a sheet of plastic film laminated to a layer of circuitry which forms patterns of pixels that are controlled by a display driver. These microcapsules are suspended in what is known as a liquid “carrier medium” that allow them to be printed via existing screen printing processes onto any surface, like glass, plastic, fabric, and paper.

Key development in the success of technology has been the decrease of costs of some of the material used in production of e-paper and this drives down the cost of the product. E-paper is also eco-friendly in that it removes the need to print documents, recycle newspaper and magazines. The biggest growth market in 2007 was electronic shelf labels in supermarkets. A typical department store has between 20,000 and 40,000 labels and retailers want control over them.

However, no United Kingdom outlets sell the Sony Reader, a much ballyhooed e-book reader. For e-paper to thrive it needs to be embraced by the domestic market.

Recent technological advances in nanotechnology have made electronic paper – or e-paper – a reality. E-paper technology originated in the 1970s at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the United States. However, it was never fully developed and relegated to obscurity until 1997 when Joseph Jacobson co-founded the E Ink Corporation hoping to develop and market the technology. Since its inception, several technologies associated with e-paper have failed to make any kind of long-lasting impact or been as affordable as printer paper products. For example, in 2004, Sony launched the LIBRIe only to replace in early 2006 with the Reader.

Despite innovations with e-paper, it has failed to challenge the stranglehold on the market of the printer word. Paper books offer a tactile experience that customers still want and which e-book readers cannot deliver. However, e-paper has a paper-like thin appearance, very low power consumption, a light form, and the ability to display updatable information while print remains static. Cambridge-based Plastic Logic uses E Ink technology and has attracted more than 50 million pounds in venture capital funding to build a plant in Dresden, Germany in order to manufacture electronic reader products with an estimate of four million units by 2010.